lindenpress

The Design of Everyday Things

Don Norman ·

The famous part is about doors, and it ruins doors for you. For a week afterwards I noticed every push handle on a pull door and every stove where you have to guess which knob does what.

The core idea is simple: when people make mistakes with an object, the object is usually to blame. The book makes the case at greater length than it needs to, and the middle chapters drag a little, but the vocabulary it gives you sticks.

Worth reading if you build anything other people have to use.

← all notes